A ticket aspirant to the local bodies poll next month in Kerala has decided to take the wedding route and field his better half on learning that the constituency from where he was planning to throw in his hat had been reserved for women.

Twenty eight-year-old K R Rajesh, who was planning to contest from the fourth ward of Nedavathur panchayat in Kollam district as the LDF candidate, found to his dismay that the ward had been reserved for women (SC).

However, the CPI(M) asked him not to give up hope and instead get married and field his wife from the ward. Soon after, Rajesh got engaged to Manija, a cashew worker, and informed her parents that she would have to contest the poll to be held on November 2.

The bride filed her papers, six days before her marriage. The three-tiered local bodies polls are to be held in two phases in Kerala on November 2 and 5.